


the way you keep the world at bay

by openended



Series: we will rise as the buildings crumble [1]
Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Christmas, F/M, First Time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-21
Updated: 2011-09-21
Packaged: 2017-10-23 22:12:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/255594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/openended/pseuds/openended
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam and Cam were best friends at the academy; they were also each other's first, but they were never more than the best of friends.  (headcanon!fic)</p>
            </blockquote>





	the way you keep the world at bay

“Hey,” Cam says, leaning on her doorframe. He’s in civvies with a duffle bag by his feet. He’s checked the tires, the oil, the brakes, put gas in his car, and his keys are burning a hole in his pocket.

Sam looks up from her book propped on her pillow. She’d left the door open so she could catch people as they left to go home for winter break, smile and wave and mutter something about a delayed flight so they wouldn’t ask why she isn’t leaving right away. Cam knows better. “You heading out?”

“Yep,” he says, shifting his weight. He’s the last one here, besides her. He planned it that way. “You are not staying here.” It’s factual now. They’ve been arguing about this for a week and a half, ever since he found out she planned to spend Christmas on campus doing “research” (a story he knew was bull since he knew for a fact all the physics professors were going to be away the entire break and her particular area of research requires faculty oversight). But he’s putting his foot down and if he has to tie her up and dump her in the trunk of his car to get her off campus, he will.

She folds the corner of her book down and sits up. “Cameron,” she starts, but she suddenly no longer has the energy to protest. She certainly doesn’t want to go home – Mark is spending the holidays with his girlfriend’s family and she has no interest in putting up with her father for three straight weeks – but she doesn’t really want to stay here, either. She’d been turning down Cam’s offer because she hadn’t want to intrude on his family, but with him standing in the doorway wearing his I-will-do-this-even-if-I-have-to-move-a-mountain-with-an-ice-cream-scoop look on his face, any energy she’d saved up to refuse him one last time is gone. “Five minutes,” she says.

Cam grins and drops down into the chair. “For you, I can wait ten.”

* * *

  
They’d pulled over and attempted to wait out some of the worst of the snow whenever visibility got too bad, but eventually realized they were spending more time waiting than actually driving and found a hotel. They lost a full day in Salina because by the time Cam had cleaned off his car, a brand new half-inch of snow had covered it. Sam had come back from the front desk with news that I-70 was closed where they needed it to be open; she’d smiled nicely at the teenage boy and gotten them a second-night discount. They spent the day curled up in the queen bed, watching a marathon of Christmas movies and considering vending machine goodies to be actual food.

It’s 7:12 in the morning, Christmas Eve, when they finally park in front of Cam’s parents’ house.

“I’m not denying that it was snowing, Cam. I’m just saying, it should not take three days to get from Colorado to Kansas.” Sam climbs out of the car, tosses Cam his keys, and braces her arms against his car, twisting to realign her back.

“And I hear ya,” he says.

They’re immediately accosted by Cam’s family, mostly still in pajamas despite the foot of snow on the ground, and Sam knows she’s never going to remember the names of everyone who hugs her as if she’s a relative they haven’t seen in years rather than a friend Cam brought home from school.

Sam’s a little concerned that she’s bunking with Cam. She doesn’t mind the actual sleeping arrangements – he’s warm and comfortable and beats any amount of pillows she could possibly collect – but his mother mentioned it in the same breath as _call me Wendy_ and she doesn’t want to spend the entire holiday denying that she and Cam are dating. She does enough of that at school. Cam assures her, once they have a spare moment to themselves, that the house really is packed as full as it possibly can be without exploding and it made far more sense to have her room with him than a cousin she just met. She smirks when they drop their bags off in Cam’s room and she spies a sleeping bag rolled up in the corner with a note pinned to it: _Cameron Mitchell, you are not to make this girl sleep on the floor. Love, Mom._

Cam rolls his eyes. They might try to sleep separately, but Sam’s always slept better when she can hug something and his stuffed animals are hidden away in a closet thanks to a quick phone call made to his brother while Sam was out scouting for ice and granola bars. He’s willing to share just about everything with her and he knows she wouldn’t judge, but the teddy bear he’s had since he was two isn’t something she needs to know about.

Breakfast for fifteen is an endeavor and Sam’s immediately enlisted into bacon duty, which is mostly standing in the corner out of the way and flipping the bacon when she feels like it. Cam’s put on scrambled egg duty, which Sam’s positive is Wendy’s doing because it puts them near each other and doesn’t force her to talk to someone whose name she can’t remember. She’s never been so grateful in her life for someone else’s mother.

* * *

  
On account of having driven through a snowstorm, they’re excused from attending midnight mass. The house empties shortly after dinner – it’s a long drive to the church and there’s socializing beforehand – and Sam and Cam have the kitchen completely cleaned up in half an hour.

“Your family’s insane,” Sam says, flopping down onto the couch. She means it in the best possible way, but she’s exhausted.

Cam smirks at her, halfway hidden behind the tree trying to rearrange a pile of presents that looks like it’s going to topple over in the middle of the night. He doesn’t think the boxes conceal anything breakable, but it might sound suspiciously like Santa Claus and the last thing any of the adults want is for the kids to wake up at three in the morning. He brushes pine needles off his shoulders and drops onto the couch next to Sam. “You did pretty good,” he says. He slides his arm around her shoulders and tugs her close.

“Thanks.” She brings her sock-clad feet up onto the couch and cuddles into Cam’s chest. The tree is beautiful: a seven foot-tall Douglas fir with white lights strung artfully through its branches, covered in ornaments both gorgeous and nostalgic. She feels Cam’s lips press against the top of her head and she smiles; he would be the perfect boyfriend if she had any feelings beyond friendship for him. They talked about dating, once, and promptly decided it would ruin their friendship and neither of them were interested in that.

Sam settles against him and Cam looks down to find her looking up at him. He’s not sure how, but suddenly they’re kissing. Though they’ve kissed before – drunken dares, the occasional comforting end to an academic meltdown, and one childish game of Spin the Bottle – this feels different. He carefully shifts, laying her down on the couch as the kiss deepens. Her fingers run through his short, military-grade hair and dance across the nape of his neck, sending shivers down his spine.

Cam’s lips move to her neck as his hands slide underneath her shirt, teasing her breasts through her bra. Sam shudders and her back arches involuntarily. She’s suddenly shirtless and Cam’s reaching around to unhook her bra and she opens her eyes to catch sight of the Christmas tree and the fireplace and the coffee table and all the pictures hung on the wall. “Cam,” she breathes, putting a hand on his arm.

He pulls away, concerned. She’s his best friend and though he’s not entirely sure who started this, if she’s hesitating he’s going to hesitate too. “Is this okay?”

Sam smiles and cups his cheek. “More than,” she says. She knows where this is headed and though it will be a first for both of them and she’s a little nervous, there isn’t anyone in the world she’d rather jump off this particular cliff with. “Just, maybe not on your parents’ couch in the family room.”

Cam laughs, realizing exactly where they are. Midnight mass hasn’t started yet so there’s no chance of anyone walking in on them, but it’s still probably a better plan to move upstairs. He stands up, tugging her with him.

Sam grabs her shirt from where it landed on the coffee table and follows Cam upstairs. Cam shuts his bedroom door behind her and envelops her in a hug. Sam relaxes and melts into him, his hands warm on the bare skin of her back. The familiar anxiety in her chest at being half-dressed in a guy’s bedroom is surprisingly absent. She thinks that maybe this is what it feels like to be with someone she truly cares about.

Cam leans back, just enough to encourage her to look up at him. “Do you want this, Sam?” There are condoms in the drawer, a gift from his brother when he discovered Cam was bringing a girl home for Christmas, and he knows the mechanics of it, but he still can’t keep an edge of nerves out of his voice.

“Yes,” she nods. “Do you?” He’s a guy and she knows he hasn’t missed the fact that she’s above-average in the looks department, but he’s her best friend and if he’s at all unsure she’s going to put her shirt back on and they’ll go back downstairs and catch _A Christmas Story_.

A grin breaks out across his face. “Yes.”

Sam smiles and reaches behind her and flicks the catch on her bra. She lets it drop to the floor. “Then stop talking,” she whispers, standing on her toes to kiss him.

* * *

  
They lose track of time after, content to lie together. It wasn’t perfect – over quicker than Cam anticipated, and Sam’s a bit sore and mildly unsatisfied – but it certainly wasn’t disastrous. They’re both silently plotting how to make it happen again when headlights gleam through the window.

“Oh, shit,” Cam says, hearing the telltale crunch of tires over snow at the end of the driveway. It wouldn’t be inconceivable to his family that they went to bed, but it’s definitely a bad idea for them to be naked right now.

One step ahead of him, Sam’s already out of bed, shivering as she looks for her pajamas. She tugs a sweatshirt over her head, disguising that finding her bra would take too long, and tightens the string of her fleece pants. Cam loops an arm around her waist, catching her at the top of the stairs before they head down to turn on the TV and pretend that they haven’t been doing anything other than watching Christmas specials in the hours since his family has been gone. She returns the gentle kiss and squeezes his hand before turning and taking the stairs as fast as she dares in socks on the hardwood.

The TV’s barely on and tuned to an appropriate channel before the front door opens and Cam’s family tumbles back inside, anyone under the age of seven asleep in someone else’s arms.

Sam clicks off the TV and stands up, trying to look sufficiently sleepy and keep the smile off her face. She’s glad for the darkness, covering up that the result is probably that she looks maniacal. There are hugs and rounds of _Merry Christmas_ and while Cam gets a recap of just how far around the bend their priest has gone in his old age, Sam catches Wendy smiling at her. There’s a knowing air about the older woman as she embraces Sam and wishes her goodnight. Sam tries to keep the heat from rising in her cheeks – she can’t possibly be _that_ obvious – but Wendy nods at her and that’s all she says on the matter.

Everyone files upstairs to bed, leaving Sam and Cam to turn out the remaining lights downstairs and try not to laugh at the ridiculousness of the last fifteen minutes. They make it through turning off lights and brushing their teeth only to finally lose control once they’re back in his bedroom, stifling laughter with their hands until Sam can’t take it anymore and crawls into his bed to hide underneath a pillow.

“Stop laughing,” Cam hisses. Sam’s muffled _I can’t_ only makes him laugh harder.

“Okay,” Sam breathes, moving the pillow and coming up for air.

“Better?”

She nods. “Better.” She strips off the sweatshirt in favor of a t-shirt; Cam’s basically a furnace and she no longer needs to hide that she’s not wearing a bra.

Cam slides in next to her and waits for Sam to get settled before he pulls the covers up around them. “You didn’t…earlier, did you?”

Sam blinks at him in the moonlight, thinking he really ought to be able to use words like _come_ and _orgasm_ , but doesn’t mock him for it. “No,” she says, scrunching up her nose; she doesn’t think he’ll take it personally, but he knows all her tells and would call her out for lying to him. “You’re plotting,” she accuses with a grin, noticing the look on his face at the same time as his finger traces the edge of her sweatpants. She’s about to tell him that he doesn’t have to, but his other hand brushes against her nipple and she remembers how horny she is.

“Yes,” he smirks, “be quiet.” He disappears under the covers.

* * *

  
Sam wakes up with the sounds of children trying to be quiet and failing miserably. “What time is it?” She groans, rolling over and taking the covers with her.

“5:30,” Cam says after blinking at the clock a few times and willing it to be later than it actually is. “Half an hour later than last year,” he muses.

“Don’t care.” Sam doesn’t know if she can do Christmas on two hours of sleep. Though, by the sounds of groggy adults slowly making their way downstairs, she isn’t going to have much choice in the matter.

“Come on,” Cam says, “out of bed.” He stands up and yanks the covers off. Lucky for him they’ve been friends for so long or he might not be so immune to the glare Sam sends in his direction.

She mutters something that sounds suspiciously like _evil bastard_ as she follows him out of bed and grabs her sweatshirt. She turns and stumbles into him, not quite awake enough yet for motor coordination.

Cam chuckles and wraps his arms around her. “Merry Christmas, Sam.”

Sam smiles, any remnants of crankiness disappearing with Cam’s hug. “Merry Christmas, Cam.”

Someone knocks on the door.

“What?” Cam answers, managing to sound bored, irritated, and polite all at once.

“Mom says that she doesn’t care if you two are best friends or soul mates; you are to get your asses downstairs in the next ninety seconds or she’s going to take the door off its hinges.”

Sam laughs while Cam shouts back that they’re on their way.

“Best friends?” He asks, catching her hand at the top of the stairs.

She nods and squeezes his hand. “Best friends.”


End file.
